Are You The Greatest Master?

Question 1:

ONE VERY FOUNDATIONAL THING will have to be understood, and that is that the people you call bad are never so bad as the people you call good. The bad people are bad, but they have no excuse about being bad. They know they are bad, and they have nowhere to hide themselves. But the people who are thought to be good - respectable, honored, respected, religious - they are the real dangerous people because their badness can hide in their goodness. They can murder and will not feel that they are murderous. They can kill and can go on feeling that they are doing that killing for the good of those who are being killed.

The ordinarily bad, the criminal, is exposed. He knows that he is not good And that is the possibility of transformation: he can understand and can co me out of it. But the so-called good hides under his personality. He may not be able to understand w hat he is doing, for what reasons he is doing it. He can always manage to rationalize.

That's how it happened. And not only in the case of Jesus; it has been happening always. The priests w ho were murderous never thought that they were doing anything bad. They thought that they were saving their religion; they thought that they were saving the m orality. They thought: "This m an is dangerous. He is corrupting the youth."

That was the charge against Jesus - that he was corrupting people, he was destroying the old morality, he was creating a chaos. And that was the charge against Socrates, and that is the charge against me. It has always been so.

The priests: whether they are Hindus or Greeks or Jews, it makes no difference.

The priests are the protectors of the old. The temple is of the past; they are the protectors, the guardians of tradition. Of course Jesus looked dangerous to them.

He could destroy the whole structure.

It is not that they were deceiving themselves. They may have thought, without a single suspicion, that they were perfectly right. "This man is dangerous. To destroy this man is to save the society." And of course whenever there is such an alternative - that you can save the whole society by killing one man - the murder is worth it. The priests killed him because of their goodness, because of their virtue, because of their m orality. They killed him in the name of God; they killed him very innocently.

This situation has been arising again and again in history. There seems to be no possibility to change it. The only possibility is that Jesus should be so moderate that he doesn't hurt anybody. But then he is useless. He could have managed - you ask me rightly. He could have managed, he could have been very moderate and liberal. He could have talked like a politician who talks much but never says anything, who says many things but is always vague. He never clearly asserts anything; you can never pinpoint what he has said.

The crime of Jesus was that he was clear, certain: that whatsoever he was saying, he was not saying like a politician. He was opening his heart. He was not diplomatic. If he had diluted his teaching there would have been no trouble. But then there would have been no Christ also. And that would have been a greater murder. Then the Christ would have committed suicide.

As I see it, as things are, this is the only way it could have been. Jesus had to be as hard as he was, had to be as rebellious as he was. He could not dilute his message and he could not compromise.

The priests would have been happy if he himself had become a rabbi, a priest.

Then there would have been no trouble. If he had just kept himself within the imprisonment of the tradition, if he had not tried to open new dimensions to humanity, there would have been no trouble. Then they would have worshipped him, loved him, sanctified him as a saint. They would have remembered him.

But he tried to open up new dimensions. That was moving in danger. But that danger was worth taking. If Jesus was crucified it is nothing to be worried about.

That was the only way. He pushed humanity to a higher level of being and consciousness.

It is not that he tried to manage in any way to be murdered. There was no need.

Priests are enough; you need not provoke them. They will be provoked automatically, they move in a mechanical way. There was no need to provoke them - the very being of Jesus was enough.

You recoil from the whole idea of crucifixion because you cannot understand. It is not an ordinary murder. It is meaningful, it is significant. It has done much: it has created something new that never existed before. Through that crucifixion, Jesus changed almost half of humanity, forced them to move on a different path than they had ever moved on.

When you think about crucifixion you become afraid, as if you are being crucified. You don't know that Jesus cannot be crucified. Only his body' not him.

When you think about crucifixion, you think of yourself being completely crucified and killed. You do not yet understand about life and death.

That is the meaning of the story of the resurrection: that after the third day Jesus was again alive, resurrected. It simply means that you can crucify the body of a Jesus, but you can never crucify his spirit. After three days he will again be moving on the earth. He is deathless. Crucifixion became a situation in which he could assert his deathlessness.

So it is perfectly okay as it is. It is nothing to be worried about. And this will continue to be so. The only possibility there is for a Jesus to exist and not be crucified is if people have become so indifferent to religion that they don't bother. And that is not a good possibility, that would be very sad. Jesus comes and walks on the earth - and nobody is hurt, and no priest bothers about him?

Rather, people enjoy it; they gather around him. Jesus looks amusing, he looks like a fool or a buffoon - he seems to be talking nonsense.

That's what the modern philosophers say: that to talk about God is to talk nonsense. It makes no sense, it is meaningless. You are using words which are only containers, and there is no content in them. God, moksha, nirvana - what do you mean?

If Jesus comes someday and nobody is bothered, that will be the most sad possibility. Jesus hurts because people are concerned. Jesus hurts because religion is meaningful; Jesus provokes antagonism because, with religion, life is at stake. The most unfortunate moment in human history will be when Jesus comes and nobody bothers to stone him, nobody bothers to crucify him. He moves around the earth and people laugh, they are amused. He looks like a buffoon.

No, the crucifixion of Jesus simply means that religion is so meaningful that when a man like Jesus comes he creates a rift between humanity. The whole humanity is divided between those who love him and those who hate him. He is significant.

Many times I think about it - that it has never happened in India. Buddha was not crucified, Mahavir was not crucified, Krishna was not crucified. Why? This country is too sophisticated about religion and when you become too sophisticated, you become indifferent.

This country could tolerate Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna. Ordinarily people think that it is because this country is so religious. That's not my opinion. This country is so sophisticated that people have become indifferent. Nobody bothered about what Buddha was saying. In fact everybody already knew what he was saying.

Everybody knows all that can be known - who bothers?

It is like Jesus walking in Cambridge or Oxford University, where philosophers think that God is meaningless. If Jesus comes to Oxford and stands on the crossroads and cries, "I and my Father are one," those philosophers will gather together and they will laugh.

"About whom are you talking? Which father? Where is he? What do you mean by'father'? Then who is your mother? " They will ask irrelevant questions and they will laugh. Jesus will simply feel embarrassed.

This is my understanding: that the Jews of Jesus' days were very simple people, not sophisticated. Religion was very meaningful, not just a philosophy. Their whole life was at stake. And this man was destroying it: this man was uprooting all that they had been protecting for centuries; this man was trying to create a revolution, a chaos. They had deep love for the tradition, for the values that they had always cherished. They were not indifferent, they COULD not be indifferent.

Either they had to follow Jesus or they had to kill him. There was no other alternative.

India is more philosophical - too much in the head. Jews were not that much in the head.

To me, the crucifixion of Jesus simply shows one thing: that they took Jesus seriously. Buddha was never taken that seriously. We could tolerate him. "lt's okay, let him do his thing. Nothing much is going to happen out of it. Why kill him unnecessarily? By killing him, there may even be more danger because the death will create a stir."

Jesus, if he was in India, would have become one of the AVATARS. But nothing much. Nothing much - we would have included him in the tradition.

Even Buddha has been included. Buddha denied all that is basic to Hinduism, but Hindus are very sophisticated people. They said, "Yes, this too is a message from God." He was contradicting all that is meaningful to Hindus, but they were not bothered. They said, "He is also an incarnation of God."

Hindus have written a story about Buddha that shows how sophisticated minds function. When Buddha died.... Of course, he was a very important man, one of the most important ever born in India, one of the most influential. How to cope with him when he has denied Hinduism? Hindus have created a story about it.

They say that God created the world, heaven and hell. Centuries and centuries passed. People would die and immediately they would go to heaven. Nobody would go to hell because nobody was a sinner. So the people who were managing hell - the devil and his disciples - went to God and said, "Why have you created hell? Nobody ever comes. Our whole existence is futile. We go on sitting and sitting and waiting, and nobody knocks at the door. Either cancel it - or send people!"

God said. "Wait. Soon I am going to a womb to be born as Gautam Buddha. I will destroy people's minds, I will poison their minds, and then they will be coming to hell."

That's why Buddha was born. An incarnation of God: to spoil people's minds.

And since then, hell is overflowing. This is a sophisticated way to tackle with a man like Buddha.

Jews were simple. They simply could not tolerate this man. They killed him. That means they paid great respect to him. They realized the significance of the man, the dangerousness of the man. Either he lives or their tradition lives. Both cannot live together.

Try to meditate on the crucifixion of Jesus and you will not be so much puzzled, confused. And you will not recoil so much from it.

Question 2:

The disciples of jesus thought in the same way. The disciples of Buddha also thought in the same way. It is part of love, not of reality.

It is part of love. You fall in love with a woman and you think, "Never has there been such a woman before; never shall there be such a woman again." What do you mean? Is it reality? In a sense it is; it is the reality for you. It is not an objective reality, it is a subjective reality. This is your feeling. And feelings are as real as stones; they exist.

But this is not a comparison. You are not saying that there has really never been such a beautiful woman before. How can you know? Millions and millions of women have been on the earth - how can you know, how can you compare?

You don't even know all the women that are on the earth right now. Who knows? - there may be somebody who is more beautiful than your beloved.

But that is irrelevant, that is not the point. You are not making a comparative statement; it is not that you have studied all the statistics. You are simply making a statement of love. It has nothing to do with any other woman, it is not comparative. In the moment of love a truth arises, a subjective truth. It is your feeling. For you this is the woman and all other women have become irrelevant.

The same happens when you love a master. It happens even more extremely because the love is even deeper. You love a woman physically; at the most, psychologically. A master you love spiritually. You touch the deepest core, he touches the deepest core in you. In that ecstasy, a subjective truth arises.

This is not new. This is nothing new with you, this has always been happening.

Ask Jesus' disciples and they say, "He is he only begotten son of God." They cannot conceive that Jesus can be compared in any way with anybody else. He is incomparable, unique - the only begotten son. It is impossible for them to conceive that there is another son of God. Ask the followers of Buddha and they say, "He has attained. And only he has attained the unattainable. Never before was it attained." Ask the followers of Mahavir. They say, "He is the only one: all- knowing, omniscient. There is nobody else."

What is happening? A simple phenomenon of subjective love. It is impossible for the lover to conceive that there can be anybody else. In a moment of love you are in such deep ecstasy, so intoxicated. Love is an intoxicant. In that intoxication, whatsoever you say is poetic, is not scientific.

And there is no contradiction in it. That's why when I speak on Jesus I forget all about Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna. They grow pale. They disappear, they fade.

Then, out of the whole history, Jesus arises as the only one. That is the only way to understand him. You have to be deeply in love.

When I talk about Buddha I forget about Jesus, because even to remember jesus will be a disturbance. When I talk about Lao Tzu I forget about everybody else.

He is enough, more than enough. He himself is such a vast sky that you can go on and on and on, and there is no end to it. They all are vast skies.

But the standpoint of the disciple is the standpoint of a lover. He is making a poetic statement. It is not reality and yet it is reality. It is not reality in the objective sense of the word. It is reality as a subjective feeling.

But I would like you to get out of it. I would like you to attain to a greater love which is less like intoxication and more like awareness.

There are two stages with a master. First is falling in love with him. Absolutely necessary; without it you will never be in contact with him. But that is only the beginning, that should not become the end. In that state of ecstasy you will be poetic. Be poetic! Don't be worried, there is nothing to worry about it. Declare your love. Go on the housetops and declare your love because the more you declare it, the more it grows.

But that is just the beginning. That is necessary to come close to the master. But come still closer and there comes a moment when the two flames of the disciple and master become one. There is a jump, a leap, and the two flames become one.

Then you become aware. Then you will laugh at your own statements.

Now you know that enlightened people are not different at all. Only names differ. Buddha is a name, Jesus is a name, Krishna is a name, but the enlightenment that has happened to them is the same. The closer you come to Buddha, the closer you will come to Christ also.

It is as if you are moving from the periphery of a circle towards the center. On the periphery one point is Buddha, another point is Jesus, another point is Ramakrishna. The closer you come to the center, the more those lines are not so separate, so different, so distant. Ramakrishna approaches Christ, Christ approaches Buddha, Buddha approaches Krishna. They are coming closer. As you move more and more to the center, they are meeting and merging into each other. When you reach the exact center, suddenly they have all disappeared.

Only enlightenment is, only light is. All have disappeared. Those were just the personalities.

Whatsoever you see in me is a personality. It is not the quality of the light; it is the mode of the lamp. It is the body of the lamp, not the quality of the light.

The quality of the light is the same. Lamps differ. Some lamp may be just an earthen lamp, some other may be a golden lamp - vast is the difference. But that difference makes no difference in the quality of light. In an earthen lamp or in a golden lamp: the same light.

It is the same. Buddha is reported to have said, "Go to the sea and taste the sea water. Anywhere you go the sea water tastes the same." The same is the quality of Buddhas. You can taste from me, you can taste from Ramakrishna, you can taste from Krishnamurti, you can taste from Jesus - the difference is only from where you taste it The ghat may be different, the bank, but the ocean is the same.

Wherever you taste it, it will taste the same. The same saltiness. The same flame.

So nothing is wrong about it. Don't feel guilty in any way. When you are in love, you have to be mad. In love and reasonable? - nobody has ever heard about it. If your love is reasonable it will not be much of a love. When you are in love, you are mad.

When Majanu says anything about Laila it is not a scientific statement. But still it has a truth: the truth of Majanu's heart. It does not say anything about Laila; it says something about Majanu's love. But that love is also true.

So don't feel guilty in any way about it, because this love is the only way you will proceed on. But don't cling to it. Move. Go on and on. A greater consciousness is awaiting you. Where love becomes aware, where love becomes consciousness, where love flares up and becomes light - there you will understand that all are one and the same. In enlightenment the personality disappears, the personality of a Buddha or Jesus, and only the ocean remains, with the same taste.

It is your love. Good - be happy about it. But don't be content with it, don't think that it is enough. Good, but more is possible.

Always look ahead and always try to transcend the state you are in. There comes a moment when nothing remains to be transcended. That is realization.

Question 3:

It is bound to be so. They sound egoistic because they cannot be humble in the sense you understand humility. Try to understand. It is a delicate point.

Whatsoever you call humbleness is a function of the ego. It is a modified ego.

The enlightened person has no ego so he cannot have a modified ego. He cannot be humble. In the sense you can understand it, he cannot be humble.

Otherwise Krishna would not be able to say to Arjuna: "Leave all, and come to my feet. I am the God who created the whole existence. SARVA DHARMAN PARITYAJYA MAMEKAM SHARANAM VRAJA. Come to my feet." What egoism! Jesus would not be able to say: "I am the door, I am the way, I am the truth." "I and my Father in heaven are one." "Those who follow me will be saved... only those who follow me will be saved." And when Buddha attained to Buddhahood, he declared to the skies, to the heavens: "I have attained the unattainable!"

They sound very egoistic. First, they cannot be humble in the sense you understand humbleness. Your humbleness is a modified, polished, cultured ego.

But then why do they sound egoistic?

They are not humble and you know only two qualities, two ways of being:

humble or egoistic. They are not humble - then they must be egoistic. You have only tWo categories. And egoism is easy for you to understand, it is your language.

When you say'I', you mean one thing; when I say'I', I mean something else. But when I say'I', you will understand it in your way, not in my way. When Krishna said to Arjuna, "Come to my feet!" what did he mean? Of course you would understand your meaning if you said to somebody, "Come to my feet!" The same must be Krishna's meaning. No, that is not his meaning. He has no'I' left, he has no'my' left.

But he has to use your language. And you understand it in your own way. So all enlightened masters sound egoistic because you are egoistic. You will understand their humbleness only when your ego disappears. Otherwise it won't allow you. The only way to understand those who have awakened is to become awake.

Continuously I go on observing: I say something; you understand something else. But that's natural. How can you understand my meaning? When I say something, the word goes to you not my meaning. My meaning remains in my heart. Then the word goes within you and you color it, you give it a meaning.

That meaning is yours.

They sound egoistic, but they are not. Because if they are, then the enlightenment has not happened yet. The enlightenment happens only when the ego has disappeared. The ego is the darkness of the soul, the ego is the imprisonment of the soul, the'I' is the barrier to the ultimate.

A Buddha is an emptiness and when he says, "I have attained to the unattainable," he is simply saying that the emptiness has realized its emptiness, nothing else. But how to translate it into your terms? He is simply saying that the emptiness has realized its emptiness, but he has to say, "I have attained to the unattainable."

When Krishna says, "Come to my feet! " he is saying, "Here, look! The emptiness is standing before you. Dissolve into it! " But that won't be direct. He has to use Arjuna's language. He says, "Come to my feet." If Arjuna is ready and willing to surrender, if he trusts and surrenders, when he touches the feet of Krishna he will touch emptiness. Only then will there be a realization of what Krishna was saying. There are no feet, no Krishna - just a tremendous quality of emptiness.

The temple of God is emptiness. Touching Krishna's feet he will bow down to emptiness and the emptiness will pour down into him. But that will be possible only when he trusts.

Yes, many times I must be sounding very egoistic to you. But don't be deceived, because if you cling to the idea that I am egoistic, you will never be able to let go, to surrender, and then your ego will go on. Then there is no need to be here with me because then the whole point is lost. You are wasting your time.

There is only one way to be here with me: if you want to surrender. Otherwise go away, find somebody somewhere else to whom you find it easy to surrender, because unless you surrender you will not come to know who you are. And without knowing yourself, you will not be able to know what has happened to a man whom we called enlightened. Only through your own experience will things become clear to you.

Yes, it sounds egoistic. Now there are two ways. If you think that it not only sounds egoistic, it is - then go away from me. The sooner you go the better, because all the time that you are here will be wasted. Or, if you think it simply sounds egoistic but it is not so, then surrender. Then don't wait because sometimes waiting too long can become habitual, you can get addicted to it.

Then you can go on waiting and waiting and waiting.

And I will not be waiting here for long. A little while more and I will be gone.

Then you will repent, then you will suffer, then you will be sad, but then it will be of no use.

It will be easy for you to touch my feet when I am gone because then there is no surrender. You can go and touch the feet of a statue: the statue is dead; there is no surrender. When you touch the feet of an alive man - alive just like you, in the body just like you - then the problem comes. The ego resists.

So either believe in your ego or believe in me. These are the only two alternatives. Up to now you have believed in your ego. What have you attained?

I open another alternative for you. Try it....

Question 4:

Whomsoever you think, because it depends on you. If you look at me with total emptiness, I will be different. If you look at me with ideas, those ideas will color me; if you come to me with a prejudice, then I will be different. I am just a mirror. Your own face will be reflected. There is a saying that if a monkey looks into the mirror he will not find an apostle looking at him through the mirror.

Only a monkey will be looking through the mirror.

So it depends on the way you look at me. I have disappeared completely so I cannot impose on you who I am. I have nothing to impose. There is just a nothingness, a mirror. Now you have complete freedom.

If you really want to know who I am, you have to be as absolutely empty as I am.

Then two mirrors will be facing each other, and only emptiness will be mirrored.

Infinite emptiness will be mirrored: two mirrors facing each other. But if you have some idea, then you will see your own idea in me.

Question 5:

Is there any need for me to tell you!?

You have both sides within you: the divine and the devil. Sometimes, when you are flowing through your divine side. you will see the divine in me. Then things shift: you are flowing through the devilish side. Then the devil will be seen in me. But always remember that it is you. I am just a mirror, a situation to reveal yourself to yourself, that's all. So whatsoever you see - meditate on it, because that must be some quality within you.

It is very easy for the mind to project and forget that it is a projection. There are people who believe that I am really a devil and there are people who believe that I am really divine. Both are taking their projections as real. I am just'I am'. I am just a mirror; I show your face to you. That's the function of a master: to show your face to you.

So whatsoever you see, meditate upon it. If you see the devil then try to find out the devil within yourself and try to drop it. Don't get the idea that the devil is within me because then you wi]l never be able to get rid of your devil. If it is within me, then what can you do? Then you are helpless. But if it is within you, something can be done. You can drop it.

Question 6:

It is because of you, ladies and gentlemen. It is because of your laziness.

I go on talking about non-doing and my text becomes your pretext. Non-doing has nothing to do with laziness. In fact, a lazy person can never move into non- doing. A lazy person is almost suicidal. He is closed; his energy is not flowing. A non-doer is a flowing person: alive.

A non-doer does not mean that he does not do anything. He does many things, many more than ordinary doers, but he is still not a doer. All that he does is a happening. He is instrumental: as if the divine possesses him and functions through him. He never thinks, "I am doing it." At the most he thinks, "I am allowing it."

A non-doer will do many things and will not be tired because there will be no tension. A non-doer will do many things and will not accumulate any ego because he is not the doer. Things are just happening. A non-doer loves his work, and the work becomes worship.

People who are in the ashram - they are allowed to be in the ashram only for a certain work. That certain work i.s: they have to transform their work into worship. But they would like to be lazy. And particularly in India, sannyas is thought to be a type of laziness. People who don't want to do anything become sannyasins.

I am not a shelter for them; I am not a shelter for escapists. I am here to teach you life and more life and still more life, because only when your energy is flowing will you be able to love; only when your energy is flowing will you be able to know; only when your energy is flowing will you someday be able to transcend death - otherwise not.

But very few in the ashram work as a worship. Many go on avoiding. Not that they want to meditate, because if they want to meditate then the thing will be totally different: they can meditate with their work. But they would like to d3 all the meditations just to avoid the work.

A few are absolutely lazy and they think that they can rationalize it. For example, let me tell you about one day in one sannyasin's life. From six to seven in the morning he will meditate, Then comes breakfast. Then eight to nine-thirty or ten is the lecture. Then of course by ten o'clock he has already done too much:

meditated, listened to such a long lecture.... So a little gossiping - it is obviously needed. Then by eleven, eleven-thirty, he is ready for lunch. By twelve, of course, he has already done too much - meditating, listening, even eating - so by twelve o'clock he goes to sleep. Up till three o'clock, rest is needed. Three to three-thirty:

tea or coffee time. Three-thirty to four-thirty: Nadabrahma, an individual meditation. Four-thirty to five-thirty he goes for a walk of course. One needs a little physical exercise. Five-thirty to six-thirty: Kundalini meditation. Then dinner time. And then, of course, the girlfriend comes, so the day is complete.

Still more meditations you need?

I talk every day for ninety minutes. That means, at the most, thirty pages. In the ashram we have twenty persons who are doing editing. Every day they have to edit, transcribe, proofread, thirty pages. Twenty persons - that means one and a half pages per sannyasin. Still the work goes on piling up. And they are always carrying long faces, as if they are doing too much work. It looks ridiculous: one person speaks; twenty persons edit. It simply looks ridiculous. And then, too, the work is never done. It goes on piling up.

They are told not to meditate too much because listening to me is meditation.

Can you do a better meditation than listening to me? If you love the work, if you love me, that is meditation. Your whole life should be meditation. People who come for a few days from the outside have to learn meditation, but those who are living in the ashram - their whole life should be meditation. Their walking, their sitting, even their sleep; everything should become meditative. Meditation should be a climate here. Not something that you do, but something that you are.

And don't carry faces that show you are doing very great work. Love it! Nobody is helped by carrying a long face and a burden. And nobody is deceived by you because the whole thing seems to be ridiculous. You just have the idea of feeling burdened. That burden kills you. And if you go on thinking about it, it will become a burden. It will create ulcers, it will make your body feel ill, and you will become tense and nervous. Then you will try to show even more that you are burdened very much. You are moving in a vicious circle now.

Here you are to enjoy, to be, to delight. And there is so little work that, in fact, it can be done within minutes. Just one and a half pages of editing, transcribing and proofreading - how long will it take? And this is just an example. The same is true with the other work.

But there ARE people who take it as worship. They are flowing and growing and flowering. There are people who work - and work lovingly. That's why some work is done; otherwise it would be impossible.

But these questions come from the people who are lazy. I will not give the name of the person who has asked this question because it is the same sannyasin who wants her name to be told.

Question 7:

Fear and guilt are not the same thing. Fear accepted becomes freedom; fear denied, rejected, condemned, becomes guilt. If you accept fear as part of the situation....

It is part of the situation. Man is a part, a very small, tiny part, and the whole is vast: a drop, a very small drop, and the whole is the whole ocean. A trembling arises: "I may be lost in the whole; my identity may be lost." That is the fear of death. All fear is the fear of death. And the fear of death is the fear of annihilation.

It is natural that man is afraid, trembling. If you accept it, if you say that this is how life is, if you accept it totally, trembling stops immediately and fear - the same energy that was becoming fear - uncoils and becomes freedom. Then you know that even if the drop disappears in the ocean, it will be there. In fact, it will become the whole ocean. Then death becomes nirvana, then you are not afraid to lose yourself. Then you understand the saying of Jesus: "If you save your life you will lose it and if you lose it you will save it."

The only way to go beyond death is to accept death. Then it disappears. The only way to be fearless is to accept fear. Then the energy is released and becomes freedom. But if you condemn it, if you suppress it, if you hide the fact that you are afraid - if you armor yourself and protect yourself and are defensive - then a guilt arises.

Anything repressed creates guilt; anything not allowed creates guilt; anything against nature creates guilt. Then you feel guilty that you have been Lying to others and Lying to yourself. That inauthenticity is guilt.

You ask: "Are fear and guilt the same thing? " No. Fear can be guilt, but it may not be. It depends what you do with fear. If you do something wrong with it, it becomes guilt. If you simply accept it and don't do anything about it - there is nothing to do! - then it becomes freedom, it becomes fearlessness.

"And surely as light shows up darkness, Jesus must have made people aware of their guilt." No, not at all. Jesus tried to help people not to feel guilty. That was his whole effort. The whole effort was to tell people to accept themselves and not feel guilty, not feel condemned. Don't say to yourself that you are ugly, wrong, a sinner. Don't condemn. Whatsoever you are, you are., Accept the fact, and the very acceptance becomes a transformation.

Jesus never created guilt in people. That was one of his crimes. He tried to cheer up guilty people - that was his crime. He tried to tell them, "Don't be guilty, don't feel guilty. Even if there is something wrong, you are not wrong. Maybe you have acted wrongly, but your being is not wrong because of that." Some action may be wrong, but the being is always right.

He accepted people; sinners were at ease with him, at home with him. That became the trouble. The rabbis, the bishops, the priests, started saying: "Why?

Why do you allow sinners to be with you? Why do you eat with them, why do you sleep with them? Why are so many outcasts following you?"

Jesus said, "It is bound to be so. I come for those who are sick. The sick seek the physician; those who are already healthy, they need not. Go and think about it."

Jesus said: "I have come for the sick, for the ill. I have to support them and I have to make them strong. I have to bring light to them, I have to bring life to them again, so that their energy becomes dynamic and flowing."

No, Jesus is a light that does not show darkness. In fact, when the light is there, darkness disappears. Darkness is not shown by light; it disappears by light.

This is the difference. If a priest is there, he will show darkness. He is not a light; he cannot destroy darkness. He will make you feel guilty. He will create sinners - - he will condemn and he will make you afraid of hell. He will create a greed and a desire for heaven and its awards. At the most he can create more fear and more greed in you. That's what heaven and hell are: projections of fear and greed.

But when a Jesus, a sage, appears, darkness is simply destroyed. When the light is there, darkness is not shown. Darkness simply is not, because darkness is nothing but the absence of light.

If there is darkness in the room and I give you a lamp and tell you, "Go. And take the lamp with you, because with the lamp it will be easy to see the darkness..." If you go in darkness, how will you be able to see the darkness? - it looks logical.

But absurd! Darkness can be seen only when there is no light. If you take the light with you, you will never be able to see darkness, because once the light is there, darkness is no longer there.

Jesus simply destroys darkness, he destroys guilt. He creates hope, he creates confidence and trust. People who have been condemned for long, have lost all hope. They have accepted their sin, they have accepted their ugly life, and they know that nothing can be done now. They can only wait for hell. They have accepted that they are going to be thrown in hell and they have to suffer.

Jesus comes and helps people to come out of their closed darkness. He says, "There is no hell." He says, "Come out. Except for your ignorance, there is no hell; except for your own closedness, there is no hell. Come out of it, flow again.

Unfreeze and melt, and live life again. Come in the sunlight. God is available."

That's why he says, "Return, the kingdom of God is at hand." He does not say that if you are a sinner then returning will take much time, and if you are a respectable religious man then returning will take less time, no.

Just think of the whole thing as if you have dreamed a long dream that you are a sinner. Somebody else in the same room is dreaming that he is a saint. Will it take a longer time for you to get out of your sleep than it will take for one who is dreaming that he is a saint? The saint and the sinner both have been dreaming.

They will take the same time to awaken from their sleep.

Paradoxically, sometimes it may take a little longer time for the saint, because he is having such a beautiful dream. He does not want to come out of it. The sinner is already in a nightmare. He would like to come out; he is crying, shrieking, that somehow he should come out of it. He is making every effort to come out. The dream is not beautiful, the dream is ugly. He is in hell. But the saint may not want to be disturbed. He would like to turn over to the other side and sleep a little more.

Remember, when you feel happy, returning is difficult; when you feel unhappy, returning is easy. That's the meaning of the saying: "There are blessings hidden in misfortunes, hidden in curses." When somebody is happy and everything is running smoothly, who bothers to transform oneself? When one is sad, in deep sorrow, in misery, in tears, then one would like to come out of it. Suffering is also good because it gives you an opportunity to awaken, to come out of your sleep.

Nothing is wrong if you can use it rightly. Even poisons can be used as medicines and they can become life-enhancing.

If you feel guilty, try to see why you are feeling guilty. Yes, man is helpless.

Right! And man is ignorant - that is right, too. In his ignorance he has done many things which were not as they should be - that, too, is right. Accept this helplessness, this ignorance, and pray. Let your tears come down, confess, repent, say to God, "I was helpless, I was ignorant, and I could not do better. And I still cannot do better, unless you help. As I am, I will again go wrong. As I am, I will again betray you. I cannot rely on myself. Help me. Only your grace can save me."

That's what Jesus' whole teaching is: ask for God's grace, don't believe in yourself - because that very belief has been your whole undoing.

No, he never created guilt in anybody. He tried to free people from guilt.

The last question but one:

Question 8:

Now. And there is no 'how' to it.

And the last question:

Question 9:

That is the way. If you can cry, if you can pray, if you can call from your very innermost core, the divine is always available. The divine is always close; it is just that you have not called, that you have not knocked at his door. Jesus says, "Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. Ask, and it shall be given...."